Eulalia instilled in me early the only family we had was Uncle Bill, Aunt Donna, your father, Linda, Jean, Warner and Zoalia, her sister (maybe spelled incorrectly). Even when we went to the reunion I mentioned last evening, she did not introduce us to anyone. What ever happened over the years she did not want us to know and for the longest time I thought we were the end of the line for the Macbeth’s. It was only after Uncle Bill was in D.C. on contract negations over the years we began to learn more about the family. Eulalia kept everything from my dad. She didn’t even tell dad when his father died. Uncle Bill had contact with the relatives in Ohio and that is how we learned we had more family.
Grandmother Eulalia was quite interesting. She was a school teacher and traveled throughout the U.S. including Alaska for many years going to where the teaching assignments could be found. Until her last 20 years, she traveled all the time. Dad lived in 20+ states in the Union before he was 21. She taught elementary school for the most part. She taught all grades but loved elementary school the most and her mission was to make life better and improve the potential for her students. She would do anything to help her students and their families help themselves. Her love and specialty was history. I would spend Sunday’s with her and she would teach me and challenge me all day long. I guarantee you if she would have been on To Be A Millionaire she would have one – no doubt. She spent the last 20 years in Lancaster County, PA. She spent her last years of teaching in the city school system. She was a proud and stubborn woman. (both qualities are woven into our heritage) In teaching in the inter city she did not take any crap from anyone.
She always had at least one dog. Often she had two dogs. She took the dog’s with her wherever she went. The dog’s ate like kings and queens. She prepared for them meals better than she ate. She would prepare meat and potatoes for the dog’s. Eulalia did not eat a lot. She did not keep a lot of food in the house either unless it was for the dogs. Dad and I would visit her often and when we spent the day we would need to go out to eat since she didn’t have anything to make. I remember visiting her and the only thing she had to eat was crackers and soup. She was a big coffee drinker – Maxwell house – instant coffee. She pretty much lived on crackers and coffee.
She was a huge smoker. Ultimately she died of stomach cancer.
She continued to wear her wedding ring until the day she died even though Albert left her in 1944!!! She still insisted she was married.
She read often. She lived at the library and historical societies after she retired. She read several books a week. She subscribed to National Geographic magazine and would win any geography game show bar none.
She made crafts and items for the historical societies to sell.
She enjoyed bird watching and one of the few things I have of hers is her binoculars. She knew the birds by their sounds. We would go camping with her when I was young and she was amazing how she could identify birds by their sounds. She would have made Audubon proud with her knowledge and recognition of birds. In fact, in 7th grade she helped me with a biology project on identifying birds and the teacher said that several of the birds we identified and had pictures of were not native to Southeastern PA and that I was making up the assignment. Well, let’s say he never challenged any of my work again after Eulalia got involved. She knew her stuff and you did not challenge grandmother.
She graduated from Kent State and continued to earn college credits until she retired. I will have to look for her number of credit hours, I know it was over 250 credit hours and she had several degrees.
Eulalia was a big baseball fan. She adored the Philadelphia Phillies and knew all the statistics on each player, the history of the Phillies, etc. She never missed a game no matter what. She enjoyed watching the games on TV as well as listening them on the radio. She taught me to listen to games on the radio to increase comprehension and listening skills. Eulalia lived a simple life.
In today’s terms she would be known to have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD. She counted everything, patternized everything and was compulsive in doing things multiple times. If you watch the show Monk – she had many of the same compulsive issues.
As you are aware she was very active in the Eastern Star. She rose through the elevations and was an integral member of the Masonic Order. I am not a mason so I do not know the details, however, when she died the number of Mason’s in attendance at the church and those following up with us afterwards were incredible. One of the largest Masonic Temples in the East is 20 miles from here. She attended there often. Unfortunately, I know there is a lot of our history there, but, can not access it.
Grandmother Eulalia was not an affectionate person. I only remember her hugging or kissing me a few times. However, she showed her love and affection through learning. She would stay up all night helping me with homework, book reports, even college papers. All of her information and assistance came from memory. I ate her knowledge up and was always in trouble and challenged by teachers questioning the validity of my stories and reports. She never had a fact or item wrong. She was like a walking internet source. In fact, if she was still alive the last 10 years she would have a website uncovering all the false and fictitious information on the internet.
She was straight forward, direct, and concise. Grandmother did not sugar coat anything. If she had something to say she would say it. There was no grey matter in her life or world. It was right or wrong, up or down, good or bad nothing in between. She was a straight shooter. You could not win an argument with her; she was always right, always had the facts and knew what you were going to say before you said it.
She was a leader in her church, Eastern Star, and Historical Society.
She always had long hair; however, I never saw her hair down. She always wore it in a bun. Even when she was dying she still had the nurses put her hair in a bun.
Grandmother also had an uncanny 6th sense. She would call my dad three to four days before something would happen and tell dad exactly what was going to happen, to whom it would happen and when. National issues, International issues, etc. It was weird. It wasn’t until I was older; I realized the gift she had. For example, she had most of the details, happenings, etc. of the Phillies winning the World Series in 1980 in writing well before they were even in the playoffs or World Series.
In accordance with her ability to “call” things days before they happened she was also very superstitious. Her superstition started when she was a little girl and she and her mother left their house to go somewhere. Her mother realized she forgot something and they backtracked to go back home to get the item. On the way back home her mother was struck by a run away horse cart and seriously injured. From that day forward Grandmother would not retrace her steps no matter what. I can remember driving miles and miles out of our way when we would get lost traveling together because you would not retrace the path you just took. She lived by a whole host of ism’s she would not deviate from, ladders, certain numbers, certain animals, etc.
Grandmother Eulalia was a fascinating person and I only wish I could remember more of what she told me as a child.
This email is from my Great Aunt Pat Macbeth about Eulalia
Unfortunately, we never knew much about the Hunter and Lewis families. Eulalia never talked much to us about them. Bruce claims Bill knew more than he did. When Scott and Matt were kids, we did travel to Greenville (once) for a family reunion. Eulalia never introduced us to those present. We had a really nice time and the relatives there were so nice. You didn’t know your grant grandmother well, but she was a very private person and didn’t tell Bruce much about any of the ancestors. Example—when we were in Greenville, we arrived early in the morning, introduced ourselves to everyone, had lunch, and all the kids played baseball in the meadow. In the middle of the game Eulalia decided it was time to leave. Bruce and I were a little stunned because we were enjoying visiting with the people there and we were talking to everyone and trying to figure out how we were related to them. But that didn’t happen. For the life of me, I cannot remember their names. Bruce has no idea who was there either.
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